The Virus
by fmapreshwab
Summary: When a plague strikes Atlantis, the only hope of our four heroes is to go back in time, but can they get their counterparts to help them before it's too late? McFord.
1. Blast from the

Elizabeth Weir sat up in her bed, the darkness of Atlantis surrounding her like a shroud. She waited a moment, barely breathing, for what had woken her. Her radio sounded from the table by her bed. "Repeat, Dr. Weir to the control room. Unscheduled wormhole activation." She didn't recognize the voice, deep with a thick German accent. There was a pause, then, as she reached out to put the receiver in her ear, McKay's voice filled the room.

"Elizabeth, we need you up here. Now."

"I'm on my way, Rodney. What can you tell me?"

"Not much. Just…get up here."

She rushed into the control room to the expectant looks the two already there. "We're just getting the IDC now," the tech from earlier, a younger blonde man with a German flag patch on his arm, told her, looking down at the readout. "It's…" he trailed off, looking up at her, then over to McKay.

"Well?" he asked, the agitation evident not only in his voice but in his whole bearing. "Who is it?" he snapped.

"It's you, sir. Your IDC, that is," he added quickly, nervously.

McKay glanced quickly over at Weir, then held up the band on his wrist that held his IDC.

"Something's up, and I don't think we should let that something into Atlantis. We should keep the shield up."

She considered him a moment, then looked over at the tech, waiting anxiously for orders. "Drop the shield."

"What?" McKay was visibly upset that she was going against his judgment.

"You're right. Something's going on here, Rodney. We need to find out what it is." He wasn't pleased with her decision, but nodded after a moment and went over to the balcony. She heard the wormhole's characteristic whoosh, then McKay looked back at her, his pale face reflecting the blue light of the event horizon.

"Elizabeth," he said shakily. His mouth opened and closed a few times, but nothing escaped it. After a moment, he gestured her over with a wave of his hand.

She hurried out to look down at the new arrivals and did a double take at what she saw. The foursome she had come to know and worry over had come through the gate, followed quickly by a large blast that knocked them across the room. After a moment, their leader came back into her field of vision. "Great timing, Elizabeth. Another few seconds and we wouldn't've made it," John called up with a wave and a grin, the kind that said he hadn't smiled in a very long time.

"Oh, yes, yes, thanks ever so much for not getting us killed." Rodney stalked angrily out from under the balcony. He glared up at Elizabeth and McKay. "Call Carson, the blast caught Teyla and Aiden pretty hard. They're out and he's bleeding." He looked back at John. "Get over here and help me with this." They walked back under the balcony.

Elizabeth looked to McKay, then activated her radio. "Carson, we have a situation in the gate room. How soon can you get here?"

"Will I need a full med team?"

"There are two injured. I don't know how badly, but they're both out and at least one is bleeding."

"I'll be there as soon as I can."

She turned the radio off without acknowledging and turned to McKay. "Shall we?" she asked, gesturing toward the stairs that led down under the area they were standing over.

"No, no, you go. I'm staying here."

"Are you sure? A whole other Rodney just waiting…"

"No. Definitely sure."

"Alright," she said, turning to the staircase.

"Well, if you're going to beg," he said exasperatedly, following her down.

When they reached the bottom, Rodney was hovering over Aiden, a piece of cloth, evidently torn from his sleeve, poorly covering a gash in the young man's forehead. He was in the process of tearing another scrap loose. John was a few feet away, doing much the same for an unconscious Teyla. A deep cut ran along the side of her face from her temple to her chin. They both seemed too caught up in the task to bother noticing their presence.

She took a moment to watch them, so similar and yet so different from the four adventurers she knew. Teyla's hair was much shorter, and she was wearing the BDUs customary of the rest of the team. John…he was worn, harried. It was like the weight of a thousand planets had found themselves situated on his shoulders. Rodney seemed older, tired, and he had a one of a pair of dog tags hanging down on his chest. He had the starting of a beard and a scar running across his neck. Aiden, even lying unconscious as he did, seemed less the child she knew and more of the stereotypical soldier. He was chiseled, matured, but…different in another way, one she couldn't quite place. It took her a moment to notice his missing dog tag.

"Rodney," John called without turning, snapping her out of her reverie. "I think I've stopped the bleeding. How's Aiden?"

"I can't stop it. Pulse is growing thin. If Carson doesn't get down here soon, he might not make it."

"Don't talk like that Rodney."

A door behind them opened and Carson and four medtechs entered the room, the techs holding stretchers between them. "S'cuse me, Elizabeth, Rodneh." How he could always find the time to be polite when lives were at risk amazed her.

He never even stopped to notice that there were two Rodneys in the room as he assessed the patients. He helped load first Aiden, then Teyla onto the stretchers, then sent the techs back to the infirmary with instructions. He turned to Weir. "Mind telling me what's going on here, Elizabeth? I just left the Major in the mess, and while I don't doubt his ability to find trouble, I don't think he could have beat me here. And I know for a fact that Teyla and Ford weren't scheduled for any sort of mission today. And then there's the matter of the two Rodnehs."

"We don't quite know what's happened yet, Carson, but we were about to find out."

The two turned together to look over at John, then Rodney, who had gotten into an argument with McKay.

"Why didn't you drop the shield?"

"What, you mean when I got my own IDC through the reader?"

"Yes!"

"It could have been some kind of trick. I'm still not convinced this is all—" he gestured between them, over to John.

Rodney cut him off. "I don't care WHAT you believe. All I care about is that Teyla and Aiden are hurt, and you could have prevented it." His face was beginning to turn a dangerous shade of red when John came up from behind and half guided, half dragged him away from himself. The two stood on the other side of the room, Rodney with his back to himself and the two still standing in the doorway, John trying to convince him to calm down.

Weir took a deep breath and began to walk over to them. McKay caught her by the arm, a look of mingled question and warning on his face. She shrugged his hand loose and continued over to them. "Excuse me," she began loudly, still a few feet away as not to startle them.

"Yes, what?!" Rodney shouted, turning quickly on his heel to face her. He was fuming, and John put a hand on his shoulder and whispered something to him. Rodney took a deep breath and visibly calmed, seemed to shrink. "What?"

"If you don't mind the question…" she began.

"Who are we and why are we here?" John finished for her. Off her nod, he continued. "It's kinda complicated. Can we, uh—".

"Can we see Aiden and Teyla, make sure they're okay before we start in on this?" Rodney finished for him.

"Of course," she said with a small grin and nod. She turned and began walking toward the nearest transporter.

John called up to her. "What's today? By the, uh, Earth calendar, I mean."

She turned back to face him. "November 13."

He grinned. "Thanks."


	2. Infirmary

The five of them walked out into the hall single file. 'What a procession we must make,' Weir thought, imagining herself in the lead, followed by Beckett, McKay, another Rodney and John bringing up the rear.

They all managed to cram into the transporter and she pushed the dot nearest the infirmary. They spilled out, and Rodney and John rushed to the front of the party and into the room ahead of the others. Rodney was running when he finally reached them. He dashed over to Aiden, lying on one of the beds, and checked his pulse and the dressing covering his wound. Satisfied, he glanced over to John, who had just reached their Athosian friend. John looked her over and nodded.

Rodney turned to the nurse tending to Aiden and asked, somewhat abruptly, "How long until they're awake?"

She checked a pad by the bed and, for a moment, looked behind him to McKay. Rodney snapped his fingers almost right in the girl's face and she turned back to him. "Teyla should be coming around any time now, but Lieutenant Ford was more heavily injured. It will be at least another couple of hours."

Rodney glared back at McKay. He walked over to stand next to John, looking over Teyla. John put the back of his hand over her forehead, and she shifted. Her eyes opened and she stared at the two men for a moment. "We were successful?" she asked quietly, trying to sit.

John put a hand on her shoulder, gently keeping her in place. "Rest. We're where we need to be," he whispered.

"And the others?" Her voice was quiet, but with the weight of the emotion behind the question rather than any attempt at secrecy.

John gently shook his head. "None of that will matter if we can do what we were sent here to do." He raised his voice to be heard by the others. "Rest, and we can deal with this in the morning." He looked over at Elizabeth, the question in his eyes.

"The morning, of course," she picked up for him. "We can assign you guest quarters for the night."

"No," Rodney said harshly. After a moment, he started again. "No, we need to stay here. With them," he gestured between Aiden and Teyla as he spoke. He half turned, caught between looking at Weir and watching over Aiden, and it was then that Weir saw he wasn't wearing the Atlantis patch on his sleeve. None of them wore it, or the flags of their respective nations.

"Of course." She nodded to them, then turned to see herself and her McKay out of the room. Before she left, she turned back to them. "I'll schedule a meeting at 0800. Contact me if he isn't awake by then."

Rodney was already absorbed in his Aiden related duties, but John nodded to her before turning back to his friend, making sure she really was alright.

hi-jinks


	3. Group Regroup

Morning came in the infirmary to find the four asleep, John and Rodney in chairs overlooking the beds of their charges, Teyla and Aiden in the beds they had occupied through the night.

Rodney was the first to wake, followed by John. Rodney convinced John to get him a cup of coffee while he looked after their prone teammates. He went over to Aiden, held his hand while he murmured softly to him. Teyla woke during this imagined exchange, but out of respect for the things being said and the man saying them, declined to make the fact known.

"I'm sorry about this, Aiden, I really am. All of it, it's my fault. I know you wouldn't want me to beat myself up about it, but you're unconscious right now, so I'm going to. If I had just kept to my own business, left well enough alone, we wouldn't have had to come back here. I don't want to be here, I want to be home, with you, like it didn't happen. It won't have happened by the time we're done, I promise. I'm going to fix this. For you, for us. I'll make it all okay again."

Intentionally heavy footsteps sounded in the hall, and Rodney dropped the young man's hand, let it fall back onto the bed where it had rested before. John walked in with a pot of coffee and several cups just as Aiden sat up sleepily. "No offense Major, but you could wake the dead in those boots." He grinned over at John, then tilted his head back to look up at Rodney. His smile changed as he gazed at the scientist, gathered a meaning it hadn't had when it was directed at the major.

"I agree with Lieutenant Ford," Teyla said from her bed, eyes still closed. "Never again would I wish to wake to such a sound," she said, glancing over at the two men behind her.

"Okay, ha ha, I'm loud. But I'm the loud guy who brought the coffee, so who wants to stop making fun of me?"

They shared a quick laugh, the first in a long time, then John dispensed the coffee to each of them. "Aiden, you've been out a while, so let me get you up to speed. McKay doesn't trust us."

"If it weren't for him, you probably wouldn't have gotten hurt," Rodney told him, shame and anger warring for dominance on his face.

"That guy, he's not you. You know that, right?" Aiden asked, looking at Rodney, who had the decency to nod, even though he didn't really believe what Aiden was saying.

"Anyway," John stressed. "We have a meeting, probably with all of them, in about," he checked a readout on the wall. "Half an hour. We have to get them to help us, but first we have to get them to trust us."

"That shouldn't be too hard, right? We just spout off stuff only we would know, maybe a few medical tests just to prove we are who we say we are, and we're in. Right?" Aiden didn't seem entirely confident, but he looked for the most part like he believed it would really be that easy.

"Maybe. But then, maybe not. You all know how difficult I can be when I make up my mind," Rodney said, looking around at them. "This could be harder than all that."

"Still, we have to try." John didn't meet his eyes as he said it, Teyla wouldn't either, but Rodney knew what they were both thinking.

"We ARE going to fix this," Aiden said forcefully. He reached up and squeezed Rodney's hand. "Everything will be like it's supposed to be."

The four of them were the first to arrive in the main meeting room. They took their customary positions, then, after a moment of consideration, took what would be unoccupied seats at the other end of the table. John turned away from Aiden and Rodney to talk to Teyla, so the two men began a conversation of their own.

Rodney lightly traced the slash that had been left by the blast. "Are you sure you're alright, Aiden? I think you should be resting. You really don't have to be here if you don't think you're up to it."

"Rodney," he said slowly, looking deep into the older man's eyes. "I'm fine. Really." He touched the hand Rodney still had to his forehead and slowly brought it down to the table. He let his hand linger over the other for just a moment, then another, until he heard the door open.


	4. First Impressions

Aiden looked up to see an exact mirror of himself standing in the doorway, looking more than a little confused.

Rodney and John stood. Teyla, not seeing any reason to stand, watched the scene unfold from her seat. Aiden couldn't have stood if he'd tried; he was too absorbed in the shock of it.

"Weir didn't tell you what this was all about, did she?"

"No, sir, only that we had some strange visitors." He looked pointedly at the Aiden across the table from him.

"I don't think your Sheppard is gonna like you calling me sir, Ford."

"You mean—".

"I'm not exactly from around here."

"And McKay? Teyla?"

"We're a bit of a group deal, a package," Rodney said, not hiding the fact that he was sizing this Ford up.

"I see." Ford seemed to do some sizing of his own, most in the direction of the man that looked just like him.

"Just so all the cards are on the table here, your Weir seems to be reserving judgment for the moment, but your McKay doesn't trust us." John was candid with the man, and he seemed grateful for it.

"He never was too good at hiding that kinda stuff, huh? Well, with all due respect to the doctor," he said, glancing over at Rodney before returning his eyes to John, "My concern is more how the major feels about you."

Aiden looked evenly at himself over the table. "He hasn't met us yet."

"Well then, I guess I'm reserving judgment too."

"Good to hear, I guess," Rodney said, looking down at the table.

"It could definitely be worse." John directed this at Rodney. "I appreciate your honesty," John said, turning back to the lieutenant. The three took the seats they had been using when they were alone.

Ford took his usual seat, trying hard not to stare at himself. There was a long, extremely awkward pause, a silence that hung in the air until the doors hissed open again and McKay appeared in the room.

"Ah, Ford, I see you've met our…guests."

"Yeah." He continued in a stage whisper, ensuring everyone could hear him. "I don't think they are who they say they are. They're Rodney isn't mean or sarcastic enough."

"Oh, yes, ha ha, a hostile force could very well be invading us disguised as, we, us, and you're making jokes. Very nice."

Rodney and Aiden shared a look, a deep, meaningful look that said, above all else, 'Could we ever really have been these people?' But it said so much more, and then it was over.

Teyla was next to arrive, sharing merely a nod with the woman on the other end of the table before seating herself and watching the men posture and banter.

Sheppard strolled in, looked around, cursed under his breath and took his seat. "I really, really thought Weir was kidding."

"Does she ever?" John asked nonchalantly.

"Okay, then, more like hoping." John grinned at himself a moment, then went back to waiting for Weir.

At 0800 on the dot, she arrived to a very tense, very packed meeting room. "I hope you've all become acquainted."

"Sort of." Sheppard was less than enthusiastic, but he wasn't nearly as bad as McKay.

"Oh, yes, we've been making nice. Ford here even invited them to a tea party in the tree house."

Weir shot him a glare, but didn't further reprimand him, which said quite a lot. "Alright, I seem to remember the question on the table being 'Who are you and why are you here?'" she said, glancing at John with a small grin.

After a small pause, during which the new team looked between each other to find someone to answer the questions, Teyla spoke. "We are who we seem. We are you, from your future."

Rodney laughed, but there was no humor in his tone. "Why don't you just ask her to take us to her leader, Teyla?"

"Unless there has been a change I was not made aware of, Dr. Weir IS the leader of the expedition."

Rodney sighed and put his face in his hand, propping his elbow on the table. Aiden reached over and patted his shoulder, trying and failing not to smile.

John saw it was his turn to lead the conversation. "We've come back the better part of a year to stop something."

"Something. Ah, yes, the ever present something that will tear the universe apart," McKay snapped, waving his arms in the air. "You're not really buying this?" he asked, turning in his seat to face Weir.

"Not the universe," Rodney said meekly, and his quiet tone bought him the attention of everyone in the room. "Atlantis. It tore the city apart."


	5. Sinking Story

The quiet that had fallen over the room was palpable. "Atlantis. It tore the city apart." Rodney closed his eyes, but continued to speak. "Not wall by wall or section by section, but person by person. At first, it could have been a coincidence. It's a big job; the stress is bound to get to a few people. Cavanaugh went first, but then it was Stackhouse and Biro. I saw Peter go. One minute he was just, just talking." Rodney was growing paler and quieter with every word. "We were walking on the East Pier. He was telling me about some system malfunction or other, and he just stopped. He started babbling and screaming, and he was tearing at his skull, and his hair was coming out on the ground, and he started bleeding." And here Rodney started to shiver. "I didn't, I couldn't call for help. He fell down. He just started shaking on the floor and he screamed, and," Rodney stopped, his throat closing over whatever he had been about to say, and then he screamed. He was reduced to a shaking mass held up only by the table he was slumped over.

Aiden went to him and helped him stand. He led the scientist out into the hall, where they sat on the floor, and Rodney cried. Aiden comforted him as best he could, but it quickly became Aiden holding him and whispering soothing ideas in his ear.

John had gotten to his feet when Rodney started screaming, but he was convinced Aiden had it under control, so he sat back down and explained the other man's behavior. "You'll have to excuse Rodney. It was a traumatic experience for him, watching his friend die like that." John shook his head sadly. "Anyway, it only got worse from there. Carson determined it was a virus, and he was able to figure a detection protocol, but that didn't stop it from spreading. It only made it easier on them when they went. A lot of good men and women died, but even that wasn't the worst of it. In some cases, people who were infected were able to stay coherent enough to avoid the screenings, and they did some real damage to the city itself. Y'see, the city, it forms a bond with people it interfaces with, a special kind of bond. She hurts when we're hurting, feels it when enough of us get sick. After a while, after enough people died, she just started to sink into the ocean. We almost had to give up hope. We worked at it for months. Finally, Elizabeth helped us come up with a plan, to go back and stop it all from happening. She was supposed to come with us, but right before we left, we found out she was infected. She'd been acting strangely, but..." he trailed off, shaking his head.

Teyla picked up when John couldn't continue. "We were dialing the gate, using an advanced protocol Rodney devised to bring us back, when she activated the city's self destruct mechanism. The blast that injured Aiden and myself was the effect of that action. We wish to stop it all from happening."

"How? Do you know how you picked it up?" Sheppard asked.

"Not how, but where." Rodney stood in the doorway, supported by Aiden, eyes red and face slightly swollen. "It was Calvin's first field assignment. We went to a planet, we have the address somewhere and I detected a suspicious energy signature. I sent him to check it out, told him to make himself useful." He had a sort of wistful look on his face, and he chuckled just a little as he said it, but it was a hollow, mirthless sound. "We found him passed out in a forest; the energy signature was gone. We loaded him into the jumper and brought him back, but Carson couldn't find anything wrong with him, any reason he should have been unconscious. Three days later…" He shook his head and shrugged.

"It sounds like you've all been through a lot. Why don't you head to some of the empty rooms and get some sleep. Teyla and Ford look like they still need some time to heal and Rodney. . . . Why don't you all get some rest?"

"That is, if you know where the unoccupied rooms are." McKay stared at them suspiciously.

"Leave 'em alone, McKay," Sheppard said in a warning tone.

John and Teyla stood. "Thanks for hearing us out," he said on his way out.


	6. Trust, Anyone?

John had left them in one of the spare rooms alone while he went next door to check up on Teyla.

Rodney was sitting in a chair over Aiden's bed. "What do you think?"

"About what?"

"Them, that us that we used to be."

"They bother me. Something about them doesn't seem…right to me."

"I'm sure everything's fine. It's probably just that you don't want to remember the old me," Rodney said with a grin. "More importantly, do you think they'll help us?"

"I don't know if they even can." His eyes slowly drooped shut, and he was asleep.

Rodney looked down at him and sighed, then dropped down on the bed beside him and fell into a fitful, restless sleep.

*

"What do you think?" Sheppard asked, turning to Weir.

"We can't trust them," McKay interrupted. "You weren't thinking of trusting them?" he asked, also turning to her.

Weir twisted between the two of them, looking back and forth. She opened her mouth to speak, but Ford saved her from having to make up her mind.

"We need to help them."

"And just how, exactly, can you say that?" McKay raged, spinning in his chair to face down the junior member of their little meeting.

Ford pounded the table in front of him, then violently threw himself out of his chair. "You saw them! That was us, McKay, and if we don't help them, it still will be." He took a deep, shuddering breath, then fell back into the seat he had abandoned. "What do we have to lose? We just DON'T visit some random planet--"

"'Some random planet' that could very easily have a ZPM or some advanced alien technology the WRAITH don't want us to get hold of."

"Because the wraith are so clearly behind this!" Ford shouted.

"If it was the wraith, why go through all this? Why not just take whatever it is they don't want us to have?" Sheppard asked from across the table.

"Oh, don't you start, too," McKay muttered. "You know just as well as I do that we can't help them."

"Oh I do?" Sheppard turned back to Weir. "McKay says I don't think we should help them, so I guess we just send them on their merry way." After a short pause, he said, "I think we should go to their planet and find out what all this is about." He turned to look between Ford and McKay. "Whether or not they're on the up and up, I want to get to the bottom of this."

"I believe the major is correct," Teyla said suddenly from across the table. "If there is a threat to the city, we need to know what it is in order to best combat it."

"Okay, but we'll need to check it through the Ancient database first." Weir sighed, turning to McKay. "Well, Rodney, does it meet with your satisfaction?"

*

The chime was soft at first, at the back of Rodney's mind. It became more persistent as time went on, until it woke him fully and he ran to the door. He was terrified that it would wake Aiden. Ford stood in the hall.


	7. Ominous Warnings

"What are you doing here?" Rodney asked, staring at the younger man in the hall.

"Nice to see you too, McKay." Ford seemed awkward, his usual happy-go-luckiness replaced by an uncomfortable tension.

"Rodney, please," he said, stepping out into the hall and letting the door quietly swoosh shut behind him.

"I think McKay would be a little more appropriate, don't you?" Ford stared down at his feet.

"No, I mean- well, yes, but…in my head…" He took a deep breath. "Look, it helps me keep it all straight. I'm Rodney, he's McKay. You're Ford, he's Aiden," he finished, jerking a thumb to the door.

"Yeah, sure." Ford stood for a moment more before breaking the silence. "You and him- He- I mean-" He gestured to the chain around Rodney's neck.

The scientist looked down for a moment, as if surprised to see the one dog tag around his neck. "Oh, right." He tucked the chain inside his shirt. "That."

"Are you- I mean, if you don't mind me asking, you two-"

"Yes, we are. I'd really hoped it wouldn't be that obvious."

"So you two are a secret?" Ford seemed uncomfortable with the idea.

"No, not at all. It's just…We have to be careful. It's things like this that can change a perfectly good timeline."

"Isn't that the whole point of you coming back here?"

"We want to fix things that went wrong, not ruin something that was finally made right." He smiled wistfully. "He keeps saying everything will be okay. He really believes it."

"Don't you?"

The smile vanished. "You saw McKay in there. You really think Weir will give us the okay after that display?"

"That's kinda why I came. Is your major around?"

"Uh, yeah, right through here," he fumbled, leading Ford to the next door. He turned back to look down the empty corridor and grinned. He followed Ford into the room.

John was asleep in the chair next to Teyla's bed. His snoring filled the room. Ford stood awkwardly in the doorway while Rodney walked up and put an almost gentle hand on John's back. He pushed just slightly, and John toppled out of the chair. He fell face first. "Jesus, Rodney!" he shouted, even as Rodney shushed him. John was led out into the hall by a grinning Rodney and a trying-desperately-not-to-laugh, on-the-verge-of-tears Ford.

Ford got to the point quickly. "We need the address to the planet."

"That wouldn't be the planet we came all this way to stop you from going to, would it?" John asked, angry, but somehow defeated.

"We believe you, we do, but the major wants to check it out, see what really happened out there."

"Maybe it'll be different. If different people go, if you don't go after the power signature…" John was rationalizing and he knew it.

Rodney had stayed uncharacteristically quiet, until he turned again to the empty hallway and called out, "What do you think about all this, McKay?"

There was a moment when nothing happened, and Ford and John began to have doubts about the doctor, until McKay stepped out from around a corner. "I think there's something out there you don't want us to get out hands on. How did you know…?"

"You're forgetting," Rodney said. "I used to be you. In your situation, back then, I would have spied on us, too. It was one thing in the infirmary, but these are private quarters."

"Congratulations, you've earned just enough trust to keep yourselves out of the holding cells."

"That's enough, McKay," Ford said angrily, coming to their rescue. "They just want to be left alone."

"Ford!" McKay snapped, but John stopped him.

"Here," John said, handing Ford a slip of paper. "This is the planet's address. Do what you need to do." He started back toward the room that held Teyla, but stopped. "You were right, McKay."

"Hah, I knew it," McKay shouted, pumping his fist in the air and warming up for a victory dance.

"There's something on that planet we don't want you anywhere near."


End file.
